Bleed It Out
by The Serial Dabbler
Summary: Good news travels fast, bad news even faster...so what happens when Adam receives news that could, quite possibly shake his existence to the core? Perhaps good intentions really are just choppy words? *Series 3 spoilers!


A/N: _'Mitchell you understand this...you know what I'm going through, why won't you help me?' – Adam._

*Warning: Contains heavy spoilers for Being Human Series 3...including this, effectively means I am no longer liable for ruining _anything _in relation to this for _anyone_.

Good news travels fast, bad news even faster...what happens when news of Mitchell's death finally reaches Adam? Unsurprisingly Christa seems to be quite good at dishes out some tough love.

Rated T: _Again _for obvious reasons, _mostly _swearing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing that bores any resemblance whatsoever to Becoming Human or Being Human for that matter.

Bleed It Out

"What are you doing in here?"

Adam's head shot up and he raised an eyebrow at the unexpected intrusion.

"I could ask you the same thing," he drawled. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Shouldn't you?" Christa snapped back pointedly, closing the door and stepping away from it. He made no move to answer and she gave a non-committal shrug, sliding down the wall to sit opposite him. "I'm bunking off games."

He smirked.

"You afraid Matt's still peeping in the changing rooms?"

She glared at him.

"No, he's over that," she really didn't know why she let him get to her, she knew that he baited her on purpose, pushed her to see how far he could go before she finally snapped...she supposed she should've gotten used to him by now. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Skipping double history," he answered easily, slumping back against the wall. "It's not like I'm missing anything...the sodding teacher's younger than I am."

"The majority of people in this school are younger than you are Adam, that's one of the things you have to deal with when you go back to school at forty-six."

"It's always an age thing with you."

Something didn't feel right, the air felt tense and Adam's taunts didn't seem as straightforward as they usually were...it almost felt forced. She took a minute to look at him, and noticed that his eyed were darkly rimmed, and his complexion was paler than it had been the day before. He looked exhausted.

He wasn't looking her way and that made her feel even more uneasy, his attention fixed solely on the crash mats in the corner. She wanted to say something, but he didn't look as if he'd appreciate her prying and if she was honest with herself she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She'd only seen him like this once before...and it hadn't meant anything good.

"He's dead."

His voice was chillingly hollow and she stiffened, her eyes flickering up to meet his. A mass of tangled thoughts swirled through her mind and she felt oddly guilty for immediately thinking the worst of him, though she couldn't deny that it was a definitive possibility. Had he killed someone?

"What?"

"Mitchell, he's dead."

Mitchell? The name sounded familiar and she desperately tried to remember where she'd heard it before. She supposed she could ask him but that seemed oddly insensitive given the circumstances. She vaguely recalled him mentioning another vampire when he'd first arrive at the school and the name seemed to fit. Not that it helped much...she didn't really know what to say, offering condolences felt pointless and there certainly wasn't anything she could say to make it better.

"That sucks."

Adam shrugged heavily.

"Not really; he was a dick..._cool_ but a dick."

Whatever she'd been expecting him to say...it definitely wasn't that.

"You've probably heard of the Box Tunnel 20?" he asked solemnly and she nodded; her shoulders tense. "It was a fucking mess, police said they were looking for some kind of obsessive psychopath," he chuckled darkly, his eyes hard and unforgiving. "Turns out Mitchell was just as screwed as the rest of us."

Her head was spinning as the implications of his words sunk in and she fought back the shiver she felt creeping up her spine.

"He did that?"

Adam's face was drawn.

"Yeah."

It didn't make sense.

"Then what about that other guy...Jason Heeley? His arrest is all over the papers...or is he just some convenient scapegoat?"

"I knew there was a reason you were on the High Achiever's board," he smirked, a forced playfulness to his tone. "I spoke to Nina and apparently there's this whole vampire movement in the works, they arranged for Heeley to take the fall to bail out Mitchell...vampires take care of they're own."

"So there's some big vampire conspiracy going on? Great! As if things weren't screwed up enough."

Adam nodded lightly if only to acknowledge he'd heard her.

"Mitchell managed to piss off the wrong sort of vampire; things got messy when he wouldn't play ball..." he paused, his breath hitching. "He came good in the end I suppose...asked George to stake him. It's pretty obvious how that one turned out," he trailed off again and Christa knew he was trying to find a way of sugar coating his next words, whatever he was trying to say was making him uncomfortable. "It's not just about that though," he murmured thickly, keeping his eyes firmly away from hers. "Mitchell was over a century old, if he couldn't reign in his bloodlust after all that time then what hope do I have?"

It was silent for a moment and he could hear Christa's light breaths as she muttered something to herself.

"So what you're saying, effectively, is that you're giving up?" there was an unpleasant edge to her voice. "If you turn your back on this you'll end up killing people...and I find it hard to believe you _want_ to be a monster."

"That's what I am Christa...I'm not like you."

Christa scowled darkly.

"Then why are you even trying Adam? Why come back to school if you're so convinced this whole thing is pointless?"

He didn't know how to answer that...he didn't know how to answer it in a way that wouldn't completely destroy what little respect Christa did have for him, though he supposed he ran the risk of doing that anyway. He'd gone back to school hoping to scrape some kind of normalcy together, and try to live a normal life. He was trying to be human; desperately trying to hold onto whatever he could of what he'd been before.

That was what he wanted to tell her, but something darker lurked in the depths of his mind that whispered differently; told him that schools were full of confused and gullible pre-teens that didn't understand the world around them...they made easy victims. It didn't matter how hard he tried to drown it out, to crush the voice that made his stomach church...he never quite managed it.

"You wouldn't understand," he said eventually, knowing perfectly well what a cop out that was.

She frowned, her back rigid against the wall.

"You're pathetic."

Anger flared behind his eyes and she was surprised when they remained brown, it was at times like this, when he'd cornered himself in the darkness when the vampire would emerge.

"That's rich coming from _you_," he replied heatedly. "I would have thought wallowing in self-pity would be right up your street."

"My God you're an idiot," she threw her hands up, glaring at him. "I _wasn't_ wallowing in self-pity, I was...it doesn't matter what I was doing; this is about _you _and your mid-life crisis."

"So that's what you think this is? A fucking mid-life crisis? You've got no idea what it's like living with _this_; there's no escape from it, I don't get days off, I can't even walk to the sodding corner shop without worrying that I might fucking kill someone."

It was rare for Adam to drop his boyish attitude; he never really spoke that openly about his issues and he didn't seem overly keen on sharing anything imperative about the darker side of his vampire nature. He preferred to hide behind illusions of normalcy and teenage libido and focus on trying to live a better life. Christa supposed, somewhat reluctantly that she was doing the same thing...but the full moon was less than a week away and she was restless and short tempered and she found she'd had just about enough of his vampiric angst bullshit.

"What the hell do you think I think about before a full moon? If that _thing_ ever got out...I could tear someone to pieces," she shook her head briskly, shaking away the images that flickered vividly behind her eyes. "I wake up with a stale taste in my mouth and I can't remember a thing after wanting to puke...I look down at my hands and pray that I don't see blood," her voice was curt and reproachful and Adam watched her cagily as she fisted her thick coat in her hands, her knuckles deathly pale under the strain. "I might not have to think about _that_ everyday but don't you dare tell me that I've got _no_ idea what that's like."

He'd done it again, opened his mouth and screwed things up. Maybe he hadn't given Christa enough credit?

He hadn't been expecting to find anything worth his time by going back to school, he'd wanted to keep his head down, take school seriously this time and get some qualifications so he could move on and try to be normal. He hadn't expected to meet good people, people who were strong enough to try and keep him on the straight and narrow...he'd thought that would come after and he certainlyhadn't wanted to rely on a couple of teenage kids.

But he wasn't the only one blinded by his problems; Christa hadn't exactly been thrilled at the idea of making friends...especially with two _dead_ teens_. _She'd been like him, wanting desperately to be left alone as she frantically tried to piece her life back together. They'd both seen each other for less than they were. Adam had seen a teenage girl with a bad attitude while Christa saw a dirty old man with bad hair who pretended to be a schoolboy.

It made him wonder how they'd ended up where they were now.

Christa? Her attack had changed her...she wasn't like the other teenage girls he'd come across, she wasn't into boys, or ponies or all the other teenage bullshit. The scars she bore had put things into perspective and if he _had_ to find a positive in there he'd say she was wiser for it. She might've been young, but she'd been exposed to a darkness that people twice her age had difficulty dealing with and she was proving she had the strength to, at the very least, try and cope.

Adam's head pounded as he tried to string together some kind of response; and he suddenly felt like even more of a failure. He wasn't just an eternal teenager; some young kid who didn't know how the world worked; he'd been a vampire for over thirty years...so why wasn't he handling this better?

"This is getting us nowhere," Christa sighed irritably, staring at the starch marks on the wall just above his head; it still unsettled her that she'd been the one to put them there. Her voice softened a little when she spoke again. "I'm not trying to say that I understand what it's like to be you Adam because I don't...so don't patronise me by telling me that you understand what _this_ is like for me."

They'd probably never be able to understand each other...it was something they both knew, but the fact they were both willing to try and help the other in spite of that meant more than the actual understanding.

Though that didn't make things much easier.

"That's the thing Christa...Mitchell was the only other vampire I'd met that was trying to stay on the wagon, the only other vampire that knew what I was going through," Adam hissed angrily, his eyes finally bleeding black. "_He _was the one who gave me the cash to move here; who gave me advice about staying off blood...bloody lot of good that's going to do me. I got advice about staying dry from a fucking mass murderer."

Christa was silent for a moment, Adam's low hiss echoing in her ears. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the erratic movement of his fingers as they shook.

"Maybe you should go back to Wales for a bit," she suggested. "Visit your friends."

Adam shook his head.

"I can't go running back to Barry every time I hit a roadblock...they've got their own problems," he replied fervently, his eyes flickering as the demon fought for dominance. "I call them sometimes but...I've made a life here," he paused, his eyes brown. "Besides I don't think we're what either of us need right now."

George, Nina, Annie...they were grieving, mourning the loss of a friend despite knowing of his sordid past. Adam was in mourning too...but for something more than just a...he wasn't really sure what Mitchell had been...a _mate_? A sodding role-model? Mitchell had embodied everything he was trying to achieve, at least Adam thought he had, yet he'd fallen harder than most in the long run. George and Nina didn't need a teenage vampire crowding the house; he'd just be an added worry and if he was honest with himself he didn't need to be around people who were grieving for a man he really wanted to hate at the moment.

Being around Christa helped a little; she hadn't known Mitchell and as a result she could see his actions for what they were...the merciless revenge ploys of a murderer...even if he'd come to regret them later. She could judge him under the same harsh morality she tried to live by and he needed someone who wouldn't try to understand his motives.

Not that he blamed the others, Mitchell had been a trusted friend, it was only natural they'd want to try and piece together his reasoning; the when and whys. Despite everything that had happened, it was only human to want to remember when things had been good...when Mitchell had been one of the good guys. Adam supposed he had been in the end...though he still had a long way to go if he truly wanted to atone.

"You're not like him Adam," Christa said eventually, and he found he couldn't ignore the conviction in her voice. "You're better than that."

He chuckled bitterly.

"Am I? It's only a matter of time before I make a mistake...I could go for years without killing anyone, decades...God knows I've done it, Mitchell's done it...but the vampire's always going to be there, biding its time and waiting for an opening and when it gets out there's going to be a blood bath."

"Doing the right thing isn't always easy," Christa mumbled vaguely, her eyes oddly glazed as she absently traced a few of the longer claw marks on the floor beside her. "Knowing what you should do and actually doing it are two completely different things."

Mitchell was a perfect example; you could either own up to your actions or let your actions to own you.

"There's this part of me Christa...that wants to kill."

And there it was; the deep, dark secret that haunted his nightmares...his existence. She couldn't say she understood it, she didn't think she'd ever truly understand the constant battle Adam was fighting. But she knew enough about him to know that he didn't want to be the monster that lurked in the depths of his mind, just like she didn't want to be the creature that prowled in hers. He was confused and he had too much pride to admit it...but he was frightened of the demon with the black soulless eyes that threatened to destroy whatever was left of his humanity. She could understand that better, she was afraid of the beast that broke her bones and shattered her body under the full moon...and they were both terrified of the what ifs.

They were both indisputable evidence that _shit happens_.

"You don't."

"I could," his voice sounded odd, thoughtful and defeated. "Would you forgive me if I did?"

That threw her a little and she blinked at the sudden change in pace. He was staring at her and she could see her possible answers fluttering behind his eyes. Would she be able to forgive him if he did end up killing someone? Would she even want to forgive him? He was testing her and she didn't know how to rationalise it, it wasn't exactly a topic widely discussed among friends...normal teenagers worried about whether or not they'd be forgiven for forgetting to return a call or cheating on an exam paper...not about their friend's potentially killing someone. But then again she supposed they weren't exactly normal teenagers...they were something else, something older, darker and even more impossible.

She wasn't entirely sure what to say, saying yes sounded naive and conceited but saying no sounded harsh and vindictive. The reality of it was she wouldn't know for sure unless it happened, and she hoped more than anything that it wouldn't...although she realised just how probable a kill could be, on either side. Good intentions sounded courageous, held connotations of integrity and righteousness but in actuality they were words...words that could quite easily be empty ones. Was she even within her rights to forgive him?

"I don't think either answer would make you feel any better."

She didn't like this, she wasn't used to feeling tense and uncomfortable around Adam; at least when he was acting like a knob she knew how to take him.

"Trust me on this, if you knew what went on in my head you wouldn't be saying any of this."

Everybody was hiding something, whether you were human or something other than human, you still had your little secrets, spun your little lies that kept your world ticking by. Life was a funny thing; it could screw you over or build you up on what appeared to be a whim.

"We've been over this."

"I know," with a resigned sigh he leant back against the wall. "You know when I was a kid I used to think vampires were cool...Bram Stoker really was a prat."

She frowned.

"And I used to think werewolves only existed in bad horror films...things change."

"Don't I know it?" he watched her as she fidgeted, tracing the starches on the floor before fisting her hands in her coat. "How many nights?"

She knew what he meant and there was very little point in pretending she didn't.

"Four," she whispered gravely.

He nodded.

"You ok?"

She shrugged evasively.

"I have to be...it's going to happen either way."

Maybe it was time he took his own advice and man up? A part of him realised how pointless and self-indulgent this whole thing was anyway, wallowing in someone else's mistakes through fear of making some of his own. He couldn't change what he was and there was no going back to what he'd been before. His life had ended a long time ago; he didn't get a choice in that...but it was down to him what he did with his existence.

"I get it...you've made your point Christa," he glanced down at his watch. "We're probably good to go now; it's practically the end of the day."

"I'm not leaving until I hear the bell; I don't particularly want to be early for detention."

He smirked, his eyebrows raised suggestively.

"Want me to ring your bell?"

She glanced up at him flatly.

"You know if you actually looked your age I could have you arrested for most of the things you say to me."

She stood up and he clambered to his feet, stepping towards her as she made for the door. It sort of amazed her how quickly Adam seemed to reign in his emotions, he could go from melodrama to sex pest without batting an eyelid, it pissed her off that she was the one who had trouble keeping up.

"You really should let me take you out."

"Funnily enough waltzing round the cemetery isn't exactly my idea of a good time," she snapped tersely, as he leant gawkily against the wall in front of her. "You're such an arrogant twat."

"Yeah, well so is your mum."

"Right...nice."

He found himself enjoying the spark of anger that flashed behind her eyes...and absently wondered whether he should find a healthier hobby. He didn't really understand why he teased her as relentlessly as he did, it just felt familiar and _that_ actually made him feel slightly more human.

"Come on Christa, everyone knows you're just playing hard to get. What am I _supposed _to think?"

"You're supposed to do the sensible thing and take the hint for what it is; sometimes it really is _that _simple."

His eyes darkened playfully as he leant forward.

"The whole school already thinks we're dating...why not give them what they want?"

"You can't always have what you want," she shot back easily, moving forward, expecting him to move as she tried to push past him.

He didn't and she came flat up against his chest, neither were expecting the movement, the contact and it took them both a moment to realise what had happened. She lurched backwards instantly before he'd really had time to react and she stumbled back a few steps to put some distance between them.

The bell sounded.

"We should go."

"I thought you didn't want to be early for detention?"

"I don't want to be _late_ either; we've got three days left...I don't want any more added on because you wasted my time acting like a knob."

She was too easy to rile, especially with the full moon just around the corner. Part of him felt guilty for it but he did it for a joke, mostly, and she needed to re-discover her sense of humour. Trying to keep things a little lighter and moving along for the both of them kept them from wrapping themselves up in their supernatural melodramas.

"There's just no pleasing some people," he muttered carelessly, idly slipping over to the door. He jiggled the handle, feeling the creaking resistance of metal against his fingers. He spared a glance back over his shoulder and noticed that Christa was watching him.

He turned back to the door, not entirely sure whether he wanted to open it...Adam knew of very few places that could hold a vampire if they truly didn't want to be restrained, and the battered, run-down equipment closet wasn't exactly high up on his list. He could quite easily snap the lock...snap the door if that failed...but he actually enjoyed being around Christa, he didn't particularly want to think too much on it but he kind of liked not having to share her with Matt.

He turned away from the door, resting against the frame.

"It's locked."

Christa raised an eyebrow, slinging her bag over her shoulder and stalking towards the door, pushing past Adam and grasping the handle. She twisted her wrist and pushed at the door, turning expectantly to Adam when it swung open in one brisk swoop.

_Right...sodding werewolf strength._

He chuckled nervously.

"Erm...Ladies first?"

She stormed out.

"Wanker."

_Truth is you can stop and stare  
><em>_Run myself out and no one cares  
><em>_Dug a trench out, laid down there  
><em>_With a shovel up out of reach somewhere_

_I bleed it out, go, stop the show  
><em>_Choppy words in a sloppy flow  
><em>_Mama help me I've been cursed  
><em>_Death is rolling in every verse_

_Fuck this hurts, I won't lie  
><em>_Doesn't matter how hard I try  
><em>_Half the words don't mean a thing  
><em>_And I know that I won't be satisfied_

_Say your prayers and stomp it out  
><em>_Bleed it out._

Lyrics courteous of Linkin Park.

A/N: Review?...I've also had a request (from my rather nutty cousin) to write something Matt-focused, apparently he's somewhat unloved? Not really sure what to do with that!


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